VIDEO: Savannah-Chatham police extricate cat from can

Thursday

Mar 6, 2014 at 5:20 PM

Dash Coleman

In nearly seven years on the force, Savannah-Chatham police officer Mike Amos has ridden a variety of calls.

But when dispatch sent the West Chatham Precinct officer to Laurel Green Court off Quacco Road shortly before noon Wednesday in reference to a frantic 911 call about an animal, he found something out of the ordinary.

Lying on the ground was a cat that had its head stuck in a metal can that once held kernels of corn.

"I was able to approach it, and I was able to put a tether over its head before I moved it, and I picked her up and took her to my cop car," Amos said.

There, he sat and waited until his supervisor, Sgt. Steve Eaton, arrived. Eaton had pliers in his patrol car, and they made the decision to try to free the cat. Amos held it while Eaton worked on the can.

"We were able to cut a little bit of the can away from it," Amos said. "... It was hard to get her head out initially, but after we got a little bit peeled back, she was able to get out."

The previously calm cat, now free of the can, slipped away from Amos' arms and scurried off, and the officers were unable to retrieve it.

"We made every effort to try to find it because it still had the little tether on it around its neck," Amos said. "But we tried to find an owner and weren't able to do that. So hopefully she was able to get the tether off without any trouble."

Until the can came off, he said, the cat had been as mellow as possible considering the circumstances.

"She was actually, I think, enjoying the little bit of warmth because I sat down with her in my car, and she was just as happy as she could be until the can came off," he said.

Amos is no stranger to riding the occasional animal call, but Wednesday's was new territory.

"I've dealt with plenty of dog calls, but never anything quite like a cat with its head in a can," he said.